


Acescence

by SQ (proteinscollide)



Category: Pop Music RPF, Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-09
Updated: 2004-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>when I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Acescence

**Author's Note:**

> Summary from The Beatles. For stubbleglitter

_appley, brawny, citrusy, dry_

JC curls the terms around his tongue as if he were drinking them already, guilty and delighted. He bought the book unseen – it has glossy pages, too beautifully arranged art – from a review he read online, ordered it over the net, had it delivered to his brother’s place. He reads it in the only down time he gets, warm post-shower post-concert glow, tuning out the other two tearing around, a hand pressed hard against the cover but he doesn’t really know why.

He’s only two chapters in, after three months. Yeah, partially because he gets pretty sleepy not long after he starts, but also because half of that time is spent daydreaming, nice moments where the cute guy at his local bottle shop smiles wider at him when he uses the right words to discuss what wine to serve at another dinner party, and then JC can invite him along, and then, and then…

But JC doesn’t have dinner parties. Or even a local bottle shop. Usually, they just wait until they get to the venue and wait for one of the assistants to bring some food, and then he’s too nervous to eat anyway, ends up watching Justin and Joey have a burger eating contest with a churning stomach, fries flying washed down with light beer, cool and bland.

 _earthy, foxy, grassy, honeyed_

Chris teases him mercilessly about his new-found appreciation of finer things, calls him a snob, and worse. It spreads too, infects each of the others until there’s no enjoyment in the sole fillet with lime herb butter on his plate, or the fresh oysters on rock salt, or anything else new and wonderful; everything tastes like chalk or any other meal he could have anywhere, the meals of bus trips and travel and work over pleasure.

“Don’t – don’t start,” he pre-empts Chris one day, cooped up in his bunk, pillow to his chest, book in hand. “Not now.”

Chris pauses. He starts, looks ahead down the corridor and turns his body back, as if to go. JC breathes a sigh of relief, a huff that’s embarrassingly loud. And then Chris is scrambling under the covers, tucking the blanket around himself into a pleasingly round tube at the other end of the bed.

“You don’t get rid of me that easily,” he laughs at the dismay plain on JC’s face. “Read to me, tell me what table wine would just be faaaabulous at my next soiree.” Chris puts on an affected accent, pronounces soiree as spelt, makes JC flush with the flare of anger and being caught out in his silly dreams. He closes the book, wishing it were hardcover so there would be a satisfying slamming sound, settles for the thud it makes landing on the bedspread. He swings his legs out from under the blanket, from where his toes could almost close the gap between him and Chris.

“No, JC, don’t – it’s just a joke, really – C’mon, read to me, please?” Chris leans to his right, puts one hand so the fingers neatly cover the protrusion of his ankle, a hold. JC wavers for a moment, before settling back with a sigh, opens his book and finds a sharp crease already formed on a page caught in his annoyance. He stumbles over the first few words before natural rhythm sinks in, the light fading and Chris in casual, constant touch.

 _lean, musty, nutty, oaky_

It sounds like goats being slaughtered in the lounge, bleating and shrieking, a vague hint of hysterical laughter. JC pads along the carpet with bare feet and already in pyjamas, runs his tongue over his clean teeth with the toothpaste freshly rinsed, to take a quick look.

Chris already has Justin in a half nelson, pressing down as if unaware of the fragility of a human spine.

“Retract it, moron,” he demands, as Justin flails in his arms, more movement than required such that Chris tightens his hold naturally. They fit, angular, Chris pressed to Justin’s back on their knees, Chris’ hand just so over the back of Justin’s neck. JC hears Justin defiant under the weight of the smaller man, a muffled “NO!”

It’s a consequence of the pent up energy that hangs around afterwards, and a way to drain them both of the same, better than any stupid spat over unwashed cutlery and dirty socks. Chris lets go briefly after Justin’s refusal to give in, almost immediately diving on top of Justin who has just pulled himself out of the hunched curled position. The tussle that follows only narrowly avoid visible wounds, their bodies sliding over each other, shoes pulled off and thrown across the room, triumphant calls as Justin traps Chris in his half-off top, the pale skin bared and then pinched and tickled cruelly.

“Shhh, JC, he’ll get mad at all the noise - ” Justin remembers, gasps, in the middle of a particularly complicated tackle that puts Chris obscenely atop him, limbs curled in impossible flex.

“Can’t wrestle without noise,” Chris says cheerfully, tugging viciously at one of Justin’s arms. JC winces in sympathy, but his face goes stony when Chris leans forward and bites the exposed skin of Justin’s shoulder, t-shirt askew. Justin twitches, groans, body becoming lax. JC continues to watch as Chris moves along the ridge, mouth and teeth, the fight over; he walks away when Chris says, voice low, “We’ll just have to keep our voices down, then.”

JC manages to read four chapters in one go, stumbles eyes stinging into the kitchenette at three in the morning to find Justin slumped snoring on the floor. JC lays the tartan throw over him softly, only considering for a moment unkind thoughts.

 _rich, supple, tart –_

JC knows almost all the words now to describe the taste of a wine, not just the tang of alcohol on his tongue but the remembrance left behind. A lot of the terms are for the same taste, the same uneasy feeling that despite the expensive price tag and promise of care, it’s just grapes left too long in a rotting wood barrels. That’s one of the unfortunate parts of learning; it teaches him about processes he would have rather left as mystery.

Chris corners him one afternoon, just under an hour to soundcheck, JC racing through a chapter on vodka – urgh, worms – with his head down, a perfect target for a bored dervish of a man. “Kiss me,” Chris demands, arms locking around JC’s neck, the book falling to the floor. JC starts, stunned, and makes the mistake of lifting his face so their lips meet even so. Without thought, and maybe the best and worst kisses begin this way, in the moment where consequence and circumstance aren’t factors.

JC breaks for breath and the air kick starts his brain, the worry and surprise and desire in one shot. Chris is already hopping off his lap. “Thanks,” he grins, “Vanilla. Not bad. J owes me ten now.” He must catch the alarm that flickers across JC’s face, because he adds, “No hard feelings, right?”, already jogging away to collect on a harmless bet.

JC never finishes the wine book; a roadie kicks it under the scaffolding of the stage walking past, and JC wouldn’t have found it even if he’d bothered to look. He doesn’t learn the final twenty words to finish his _vino_ vocabulary, more synonyms for the sweetness of wine, and bitter aftertastes.

END


End file.
